The conglomeratization of the American market often works behind the scenes to make this choice an illusion. The link to the Coca Cola website, for example, shows that whether you select their flagship cola, or Nestea, or Barq's Root Beer, or Fruitopia, or Hi-C, or any of the hundreds of products they own, you are funneling your money into their corporation regardless of the decision made in the aisle.

The corporation wins no matter which choice you make, and thus you have no choice at all.

Not a groundbreaking observation, of course, but one feels a definite unease at the prospect of top-level groups merging to render consumer selection meaningless. We are bred and trained to respond to advertising just as we compete to labor for the companies that offer us these products. The circle closes and the wheel of samsara clicks shut like a shackle.

The movement to privatize essential services like water supply (see http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/020812/biztech/12water.htm) suggests that some sort of cycle is at work that will force us to demand that more than a handful of major players control our electricity, our phones, our roads, our homes. Failing that, we will elect our governing rulers with our own dollars. When will John Brunner's _The Sheep Look Up_ become reality? It already has.
6:29:09 PM       

Now, keeping that from being utterly trite and annoying is a challenge. Also hard is resisting the urge to end all of the bird's remarks with something like, "Awk!"

I know, but as bad as this looks conceptually, it does seem to work in a samizdat pub.

Went to a party last night and got onto a rant about suicide when someone made a comment about Cobain along the lines of, "Wasn't he stupid for cashing out when he'd achieved the success and fame so many artists are struggling for?"

My response was basically that there are three types of suicides, namely, the medical, the emotional, and the philosophical. To argue that Mr. Cobain killed himself because he was in a drug-induced depression or in the throes of a bipolar episode puts him in one of the first two categories.

The philosophical suicide, I argued, is quite different. It represents a valid response to the observation that one is nothing but a meat machine with organic drives and experiencing an extended process of decomposition (i.e., aging). There should be nothing wrong with a cool, rational assessment of this situation that results in a decision to cease the charade and terminate of one's own volition and at an opportune moment.

As I conclude this statement, I observe that my fellow guests are very uncomfortable with these ideas and elect to make a joke of some sort that puts everything right. I'm noticing the same thing at school, however. There is a tendency among most to want things neat and orderly, comfortable and unambiguous.

People get angry when you threaten that.
1:52:51 PM